Many communication systems modulate electromagnetic signals from baseband to higher frequencies for transmission, and subsequently demodulate those high frequencies back to their original frequency band when they reach the receiver. The original (or baseband) signal may be, for example: data, voice or video. These baseband signals may be produced by transducers such as microphones or video cameras, be computer generated, or transferred from an electronic storage device. In general, the high frequencies provide longer range and higher capacity channels than baseband signals, and because high frequency (HF) radio frequency (RF) signals can effectively propagate through the air, they can be used for wireless transmissions as well as hard wired or fibre channels.
All of these signals are generally referred to as RF signals, which are electromagnetic signals; that is, waveforms with electrical and magnetic properties within the electromagnetic spectrum normally associated with radio wave propagation.
Wired communication systems which employ such modulation and demodulation techniques include computer communication systems such as local area networks (LANs), point-to-point communications, and wide area networks (WANs) such as the Internet. These networks generally communicate data signals over electrically conductive or optical fibre channels. Wireless communication systems which may employ modulation and demodulation include those for public broadcasting such as AM and FM radio, and UHF and VHF television. Private communication systems may include cellular telephone networks, personal paging devices, HF radio systems used by taxi services, microwave backbone networks, interconnected appliances under the Bluetooth standard, and satellite communications. Other wired and wireless systems which use RF modulation and demodulation would be known to those skilled in the art.
Most RF receivers use the “super-heterodyne” topology, which provides good performance in a limited scope of applications, such as in public-broadcast FM radio receivers. As will be explained, these limitations make its use in more sophisticated modern applications expensive and its performance poor.
The super-heterodyne receiver uses a two-step frequency translation method to convert an RF signal to a baseband signal. FIG. 1 presents a block diagram of a typical super-heterodyne receiver 10. The mixers labelled M1 12 and M2 14 are used to translate the RF signal to baseband or to some intermediate frequency (IF). The balance of the components amplify the signal being processed and filter noise from it.
The RF band pass filter (BPF1) 18 first filters the signal coming from the antenna 20 (note that this band pass filter 18 may also be a duplexer). A low noise amplifier 22 then amplifies the filtered antenna signal, increasing the strength of the RF signal and reducing the noise figure of the receiver 10. The signal is next filtered by another band pass filter (BPF2) 24 usually identified as an image rejection filter. The signal then enters mixer M1 12 which multiplies the signal from the image rejection filter 24 with a periodic signal generated by the local oscillator (LO1) 26. The mixer M1 12 receives the signal from the image rejection filter 24 and translates it to a lower frequency, known as the first intermediate frequency (IF1).
Generally, a mixer is a circuit or device that accepts as its input two different frequencies and presents at its output:    (a) a signal equal in frequency to the sum of the frequencies of the input signals;    (b) a signal equal in frequency to the difference between the frequencies of the input signals; and    (c) the original input frequencies.The typical embodiment of a mixer is a digital switch which may have significantly more tones than stated above.
The IF1 signal is next filtered by a band pass filter (BPF3) 28 typically called the channel filter, which is centred around the IF1 frequency, thus filtering out the unwanted products of the first mixing processes; signals (a) and (c) above. This is necessary to prevent these signals from interfering with the desired signal when the second mixing process is performed.
The signal is then amplified by an intermediate frequency amplifier (IFA) 30, and is mixed with a second local oscillator signal using mixer M2 14 and local oscillator (LO2) 32. The second local oscillator LO2 32 generates a periodic signal which is typically tuned to the IF1 frequency. Thus, the signal coming from the output of M2 14 is now at baseband, that is, the frequency at which the signal was originally generated. Noise is now filtered from the desired signal using the low pass filter LPF 38, and the signal is passed on to some manner of presentation, processing or recording device. For example, in the case of a radio receiver, this might be an audio amplifier, while in the case of a computer modem this may be an analogue to digital convertor.
Note that the same process can be used to modulate or demodulate any electrical signal from one frequency to another.
The main problems with the super-heterodyne design are:                it requires expensive off-chip components, particularly band pass filters 18, 24, 28, and low pass filter 38;        the off-chip components require design trade-offs that increase power consumption and reduce system gain;        image rejection is limited by the off-chip components, not by the target integration technology;        isolation from digital noise can be a problem; and        it is not fully integratable.        
The band pass and low pass filters 18, 24, 28 and 38 used in super-heterodyne systems must be high quality devices, so electronically tunable filters cannot be used. As well, the only way to use the super-heterodyne system in a multi-standard/multi-frequency application is to use a separate set of off-chip filters for each frequency band.
Direct-conversion transceivers attempt to perform up and down conversion in a single step, using one mixer and one local oscillator. In the case of down-conversion to baseband, this requires a local oscillator with a frequency equal to that of the input RF signal. If the LO signal of a direct conversion receiver leaks into the signal path, it will also be demodulated to baseband along with the input signal, causing interference. This LO leakage problem limits the utility of direct-conversion transceivers.
One of the current problems in the art is to develop effective transceivers (i.e. devices having both a receiver and a transmitter) that can adapt to the varying requirements caused either by changing reception conditions, or even changing standards during the use of the device. For cellular telephones and similar consumer items, it is desirable to have transceivers that can be fully integrated onto inexpensive, low power integrated circuits (ICs).
This continuing desire to implement low-cost, power efficient receivers and transmitters has led to intensive research into the use of highly integrated designs, an increasingly important aspect for portable systems, including cellular telephone handsets. This has proven especially challenging as the frequencies of interest in the wireless telecommunications industry (especially low-power cellular/micro-cellular voice/data personal communications systems) have risen above those used previously (approximately 900 MHz) into the spectrum above 1 GHz.
Attempts to provide flexible designs in Radio Frequency Integrated Circuits (RFICs)—also known as monolithic microwave integrated circuits (MMICs)—allowing for multiple standards and varying conditions of reception have met with limited success. These designs usually provide duplication of the functions affected by these considerations. One example is that presented in U.S. Pat. No. 6,185,418, titled “Adaptive digital radio communication system”, which involves reconfiguring the system by reprogramming at least one programmable device such as a Programmable Logic Device (PLD) to perform the digital communications processing functions of the transmitter or the receiver of a radio communications system. Other implementations are related to the ability to distinguish between and cope with very different modulation schemes. One such example is given in U.S. Pat. No. 5,649,288, titled: “Dual-function double balanced mixer circuit”.
Thus, there is a need for a method and apparatus for modulation and demodulation which addresses the problems above. It is desirable that this design be fully-integratable, inexpensive and high performance. As well, it is desirable that this design be easily applied to multi-standard/multi-frequency applications.